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Ecosystems and Energy

● Ecosystem: the sum of all the organisms living in a
given area and the abiotic factors they interact with
○ Biotic factors: living, or once living, components
of an environment
○ Abiotic factors: nonliving (physical and chemical
properties of the environment)

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 Practice Time
● Look outside and find three biotic factors and three
abiotic factors. Write what you find in your packet.

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 Ecosystems and Energy
● Think, pair, share: what are the first two laws of
thermodynamics?
○ 1st law: energy can neither be created nor
destroyed, only transferred
■ Law of conservation of mass: chemical elements
are continually recycled in the environment
○ 2nd law: exchanges of energy increase the
entropy of the universe

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 Ecosystems and Energy
● A net gain in energy results in energy storage or
growth of an organism
● A net loss of energy results in loss of mass and
eventual death of an organism

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 Metabolic Rate
● Metabolic rate: the total amount of energy an
animal uses in a unit of time
○ Can be measured in calories, heat loss, or by the
amount of oxygen consumed (or CO2 produced)
■ Oxygen is used in cellular respiration and CO2 is
produced as a by-product
○ An animal’s metabolic rate is related to its body
mass
■ Smaller organisms = higher metabolic rate
■ Larger organisms = lower metabolic rate

Why might this be?

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 Ecosystems and Energy
● Organisms use different strategies to regulate body
temperature
○ Endotherms: use thermal energy from
metabolism to maintain body temperatures
○ Ectotherms: use external sources (ie
sun/shade or other organisms) to regulate their
body temperature

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 Trophic Levels
● Species can be grouped into trophic levels based
upon their main source of nutrition and energy

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 Trophic Levels
● Unlike mass, energy CANNOT be recycled
○ The sun constantly supplies energy to ecosystems

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 Trophic Levels
● Primary producers (autotrophs) use light energy to
synthesize organic compounds
○ Plants, algae, photosynthetic plankton
■ Some organisms are chemosynthetic (vs
photosynthetic) meaning they produce food using
the energy created by chemical reactions
● i.e. some bacteria and archaea organisms

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 Trophic Levels
● Heterotrophs rely on autotrophs because they
cannot make their own food
○ Primary consumers: herbivores
○ Secondary consumers: carnivores that eat
herbivores
○ Tertiary consumers: carnivores that eat other
carnivores
○ Decomposers: get energy from detritus (nonliving
organic material; leaves, wood, dead organisms)
○ Include fungi and many prokaryotes
○ Important for recycling chemical elements

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 Trophic Structure
● The trophic structures of a community
are determined by the feeding
relationships between organisms
○ Food chain: the transfer of food
energy up the trophic levels
■ Food webs: linked food chains

Notice the arrows show the transfer of

energy (i.e. the fish is energy for the
bird)

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 Trophic Levels
● Any changes to the availability of energy can
disrupt ecosystems
○ For example:
■ If energy resources change, so can the number
and size of trophic levels (Increase energy,
increase trophic levels/size; decrease energy,
decrease trophic levels/size)
■ A change at the producer level can affect the
number and size of the remaining trophic levels

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 Primary Production
● Primary production: the amount of light energy that
is converted to chemical energy
○ Primary producers set a “spending limit” for the
entire ecosystems energy budget
○ Gross primary production (GPP): total primary
production in an ecosystem
○ Net primary production (NPP): the GPP minus
the energy used by the primary producers for
respiration (Ra)

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 Primary Production
● Satellite images show that different ecosystems have
varying NPP
○ What areas have higher NPP and why?

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 Secondary Production
● Secondary production: the amount of chemical
energy in a consumer’s food that is converted to new
biomass
○ The transfer of energy between trophic levels is at
around 10% efficiency

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 Matter Cycling
● Unlike energy, matter cycles through ecosystems
○ Matter is found in limited amounts, unlike solar
energy
○ Biogeochemical cycles: nutrient cycles that
contain both biotic and abiotic factors
■ Water, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycle

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 Water Cycle
● Biological importance: water is essential for all life
and influences the rate of ecosystem processes

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 Carbon Cycle
● Biological importance: carbon is essential for life and
required in the formation of organic compounds

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 Nitrogen Cycle
● Biological importance: nitrogen is important for the
formation of amino acids, proteins, and nucleic acids

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 Phosphorus Cycle
● Biological importance: phosphorus is important for
the formation of nucleic acids, phospholipids, and
ATP (energy)

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